


Vacant Eyes and Gorgeous Deaf Butterflies

by ImmortalError



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blood and Gore, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Merlin isn't dead, Resurrection, Self-Mutilation, Temporary Amnesia, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 10:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15970673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImmortalError/pseuds/ImmortalError
Summary: Harry finds himself lost after the events of the Golden Circle. A song plays in his head on loop, he thinks maybe it would hurt less if he couldn't hear. That is, until, the unexpected happens.





	Vacant Eyes and Gorgeous Deaf Butterflies

Harry could remember the first time he he’d heard the song since the explosion. Each sound wave pricked at him, each syllable cut at him. He refused to listen, simply shut his ears off with his palms, closed his eyes and focused on something else- anything else. But the music was much stronger then he was. With closed eyes came images, with closed eyes came memories.

_ Life is old there, older than the trees.  _ _   
_ _ Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze. _

Desperate eyes. The slice of a knife. Fear. Acceptance. Shaking hands. The falling of leaves. Worry. Desperation. Serenading lips. The click of a land mine. Blood. Smoke. White noise. Loss. Mourning. Vacant eyes.   


_ Country roads, take me home. To the place I belong.  _

Harry had held his palms against his ears, pressed in so hard that he worried he may just break his own skull. Harry didn’t like closing his eyes, there was blood lingering on the back of his eyelids. Merlin’s blood. Harry didn’t like his ears because they  _ worked _ . With working ears came reminders. Clicks and hissed became threats, thuds and shakes became danger. All because of that one land mine, that one land mine that had ruined everything. So Harry took the closest object, and hurtled it at the radio. He had to pay the pub back for damages, but the song’s absence bought a sort of peace. 

_ West Virginia, mountain mama. Take me home, country roads.  _

The Kingsman had been as rebuilt as they could get. With a new technical expert, Harry had been expected to attend meetings and conferences. He couldn’t bring himself to do it however, not with that song playing. It had begun looping in his head, repeating to the point of it hurting. Harry was taking up drinking a bit more frequently and, after absolute intoxication, Harry tried to saw his ears off. Maybe without ears the song would stop haunting him. 

_ All my memories gather round her. Miner's lady, stranger to blue water.  _

Without much surprise, Harry hadn’t been successful in his attempt. He’d made it a few mere centimeters down his right ear before he stopped. Not because of the pain, not because of the horror, but because he realised he was doing exactly what had happened to Merlin. He was tearing himself to pieces. So tugged the blade free and, finally, broke down with a drink in his grasp and blood on his hands. 

_ Dark and dusty, painted on the sky. Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye.  _

The Kingsman was becoming foreign to Harry. He was hiding in his apartment, in one specific corner of one specific room, with an unspecified purpose. To heal, maybe. To understand, possibly. To accept, unlikely. Yes, Harry was aware he was more than just his name. With the alias Galahad came a great amount of responsibility, a responsibility being ignored and replaced with spirits. It wasn’t until Eggsy called that Harry felt anything other then pain. Eggsy said three words that Harry had been holding out on hearing.  _ He’s. Not. Dead.  _

_ Country roads, take me home. To the place I belong. _

Months of personal neglect and a lack of self care had been rough on Harry. Of course that was to be expected and Eggsy hadn’t considered anything less. It was still confronting to see, however. Skin the palest shade of sickly grey and a face so thin that it was almost unrecognisable, Eggsy could barely bring himself to look into Harry’s darkened eyes. Vacant eye, it was. A vacant eye that became recognisable the second it looked at Merlin. 

_ West Virginia, mountain mama. Take me home, country roads.  _

Merlin himself was almost unrecognisable. Missing one and a half legs, three quarters of an arm and two fingers, he hadn’t returned entirely. Passed out on the medic’s bed, he looked almost peaceful. Scars, blisters and lacerations littered and stained his skin. Not whole, but alive. When Harry saw Merlin’s face, something incredible happened. The song stopped. _Just like that._   
  
Eggsy had been the softest with Harry. He’d spoke in hushed whispers and under-exaggerated explanations. The doctor, a stranger, hadn’t been as kind. Merlin was lucky, but he was living severely on the edge. He could have been brain damaged, he could have been someone else entirely. All that was known was that someone had fixed him up. There were stitches and blisters from cauterisation. There was evidence of bandaging and cleaning. He hadn’t done it to himself. The only explanation to his survival was a note in his pocket. One that said, _‘return to the Lepidopterist’._  
  
Merlin’s had been returned. Merlin had been returned and there was no chance in hell that the Lepidopterist was going to leave that bedside. Eggsy bought Harry a seat and the moment he was sat, there was no moving him. For the universe would move around him, nothing could take him from that bedside. Would Harry wait hours? Yes. Would Harry wait days? Yes. Would Harry wait weeks? Yes. Harry would wait millennia if it meant he could see Merlin’s eyes again. Pushing his luck, maybe even hear his voice. So he intertwined his fingers with Merlin’s and fell asleep by the bed. The song was gone, the haunting had passed, he could rest as long as he kept those fingers tangled amongst his own.   
  
He’d awoken to coughs, not his own. Coughs from a broken voice box, coughs from a dead man. Or, realistically, a previously-dead man. Harry had blinked his eye open to Merlin’s own blinking eyes. There was a vacancy in them, yes, but there was enough there to cause the smile on Harry’s face.   
“Merlin...” Harry had whispered, in awe-struck breathlessness. Merlin’s furrowed brow flared an anxiousness in Harry,  
“G-Galahad?” Merlin whispered back, looking around as if in search for something else, “H... Harry..?”  
  
Should Harry have jumped forward and pulled Merlin close to him? Probably not. Had he? Certainly. He held Merlin closer then he’d ever held anything. Although shocked and weak, Merlin lifted his trembling arm up to try return the gesture and buried his face in Harry’s shoulder. There was so much to evaluate.   
  
For one, Merlin did have brain damage. It had been dubbed ‘TBI’ to avoid too much concern. Although, in the span of all things, acronyms weren’t much more help then they were a pester. He was having memory problems. Short term, long term, either was on the charts. Merlin would occasionally forget where he was or who he was. He forgot Eggsy for a brief few moments, he at some point had to ask what Kingsman was. Even small things like the day of the week or the year would slip past Merlin’s mind. No one asked about the explosion, too scared of triggering any bad memories. He had to face those memories one day, that would complete the nanites work and hopefully put his mind back together. Every little flicker of uncertainty plunged Harry’s heart into the deepest darkness. In saying that, the one thing Merlin didn’t seem to forget was Harry.   
  
Secondly, Merlin wasn’t mobile. His arms and legs were all new adjustments, majority of him was synthetic. Strange, having limbs made of foreign materials. Merlin would have to learn how to walk again, once he was fit enough to do so. Once colour returned to his face and there was something more than a mere few layers of skin clasping to his bones. That process in itself was difficult, but learning how to walk again was something else entirely. Working on both his mind and his body all at once was beyond exhausting. Merlin was pushing himself, with so much hardship pushing right back at him. Harry was there every slow, agonising step of the way.   
  
With time, Merlin became more recognisable. He had control of his synthetics, colour had returned to his skin and his eyes were looking a lot less vacant. One of the more strange adjustments had been his hearing. His right ear had been passed saving, there was no part of it that was salvageable. Harry would occasionally talk on his right side and be confused when Merlin seemed as if he were ignoring him. He’d remember, immediately after that moment of confusion, and hate himself for not being considerate. At first it was okay, when Merlin had forgotten his short term. It was once he was remembering that Harry scolded himself. _Return to the Lepidopterist._ What did that mean? _Return to the Lepidopterist_. Merlin didn’t know; he said there was no sense to it. He even asked, at some point, who the Lepidopterist was. So Harry had whispered a mere _‘I’ll show you’._ _  
_  
Merlin hadn’t left that hospital room unless it had been to practice walking. He’d been a stranger to fresh air and the warm embrace of the sun for over a year by that point. His limp slowed as he gazed at the beauty of the outside world. People stopped to watch the two men; one missing an eye and the other missing much more than just his eye. Merlin placed so much faith in his walking stick, and even more faith in his grip on Harry’s shoulder. He reminded himself that Harry had a hold on his waist and, if he were to fall, Harry would undoubtedly catch him.  
  
Lepidopterist. An odd word, one which filled Merlin’s head with an itch. He felt like he knew it. It was important, somehow, by some means. What those means were was a mystery. So he followed Harry’s lead and embraced the strange array of experiences he’d been missing confined in his medical bed. The screeching of car tyres, the rustle of leaves, the wind against his skin. All the struggle he felt in his limbs was being carried away with that wind, he felt more freedom then he ever remembered. Why Harry had taken him to a greenhouse, was a mystery in itself. That was, until, Merlin spotted a colourful splash of colour against a shriveled leaf. Blues brighter than that of the sky, winding across wings of what looked like velvet. The only word Merlin could think of was __gorgeous.   
“Butterflies?” Merlin whispered, his voice a mere leaf on the wind. He felt Harry’s nails dig slightly deeper into his skin on his waist.   
“Hmm...” Harry hummed, his eye following the gorgeous creature as it sprung to life off of the leaf. “I wanted to be a Lepidopterist, before all this secret agent business...”   
Merlin began remembering that portion of his life. When he’d found Harry’s sketches of the most extravagant butterflies, and asked just what they were for. Harry had taken him to a butterfly house, just like the one they were in. 

__ “It was believed butterflies were deaf up until the 1910’s...”   
that was the first thing Harry had said as they were surrounded by beating wings of every shade. Merlin raised an eyebrow briefly.  __   
_ “Why Lepidopterology?” Merlin had flinched slightly, a butterfly hovering too close for his liking.  _ __   
__ “Well... they’re gorgeous creatures. Sure they’re small and deaf in a sense but...”   
Harry held his hand out, a butterfly with golden wings landed on his finger,   
“they’re a symbol... it’s amazing something so precious can accomplish so much...” __   


“Return to the Lepidopterist...” Merlin whispered, “why return to you? What part of all this makes any sense?”   
“I don’t know, Merlin.”    
Merlin felt Harry lean into him slightly. So, Merlin lifted his partially synthetic hand, twitching in all its damage, just to run it through Harry’s hair. His finger flawlessly drifting through. It was then when Merlin noticed that Harry had damage to his right ear. Merlin’s fingers had trailed the awkward jagged bumps of remaining skin, scarring of the most vicious nature. That same ear Merlin himself had lost.    
“What happened here...?” Merlin asked, running his thumb down the front of the wound. He tilted his head curiously, eyes concerned.    
“I...” Harry had trailed off, looking down in shame. He hated those scars, he was incredibly ashamed by their presence. Merlin, still running his thumb along the scars, lifted Harry’s chin with his other fingers.    
“What happened, Harry?”    
There was disgust in Harry’s eye. Hatred and regret simmering beneath his frames. Merlin could see Harry holding his breath, stiff in frame and stubborn in nature.    
“I...” he trailed off again, “I hit rock bottom. Simple as that. I hit rock fucking bottom.”    
Merlin narrowed his eyes, watchful. Many emotions passed over Harry’s face, less lingered on his lips, even fewer were expressed in words.    
“You mean...?” Merlin looked back to the atrocious nature of the markings. There was a viciousness was to the wounds, a viciousness Merlin was slowly realising was self-inflicted.    
“Yes, Merlin.” Harrys’ hand reached up to cup Merlin’s against his cheek. “I hit rock bottom and I tried to take it off.”   
Merlin nearly winced at the idea. He would have, hadn’t he experienced it himself. The wounds caused so many concerns, the scars begged so many questions, the action screamed so many different things. The only word Merlin could form was the broadest he could’ve thought of,   
“ _ Why _ ?”    
  
Harry’s immediate silence said that there was more then one reason. By the way that Harry’s eye seemed to be thinking, Merlin knew it wasn’t simple.    
“You were gone.” Maybe Merlin had thought too soon, maybe it was simple. “Merlin, you died. You died singing. That song, was stuck in my head. For months. You were serenading me from the grave. And as much as I missed your voice...”    
Merlin had thought too soon a second time. Simple was the last word he’d use to describe it. Harry’s voice was being blocked by breaths, weighed down with light sniffs. A tear breached the brim of his eye, tumbling in a free fall.    
“...as much as I missed your voice. I- couldn’t... I couldn’t.... I fucking couldn’t.”    
There was nothing Merlin could say that would help. No explanation, no justification. No answer to who had helped him, no reason for his revival. Merlin wanted Harry’s trembling lips to close. He shouldn’t have to had explained all that, Harry didn’t deserve it in even the slightest. So, on the most unusual of whims, Merlin tilted Harry’s jaw up with his fingers and kissed him. It was delicate, as if Harry feared that he would simply hurt Merlin if he were to put any force into it. It was soft and gentle, but the word that sprang into Merlin’s mind was that of the butterfly. 

_ Gorgeous _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write this? Who even knows. Help I'm going back through my old ship phases.


End file.
